Underland by Robert Macfarlane is a fascinating non-fiction read in The Lazy Book Club.

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Book #7 - Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman

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Dee
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Fri Sep 06, 2019 1:01 pm

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It is Kelman's debut novel and is told from the point of view of an eleven year old Ghanaian who moves to London where he lives on a rough estate.

I do not want to put up any reviews about it because I think the less you know the better and a lot of them reveal too much.
Recommendation by Mz Moonchime

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Dee
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Fri Sep 06, 2019 1:09 pm

Twenty pages in. I already love it. So well written, and our narrator is adorable. I get the feeling that I've just read a whole bunch of foreshadowing, and I know more or less where we are going here, but I am curious about the journey, and every thought and turn of phrase that comes out of the mouth of this young lad is just wonderful.

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Moonchime
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Mon Nov 04, 2019 5:34 am

So glad that you are enjoying it - even if it's only the first 20 pages - although I'm hoping you are further by now!!!

OK Mz Dee - I need to get this down before I forget everything I was going to say. I know there is no rush as I am unlikely to be able to sail into the harbour at will, but the heat of my impressions will be lost if I wait any longer.


Despite having read this book before, I found it still packs a punch. Writing in such a direct style and in the first person creates the innocent voice through which we are introduced to dark adult themes. There is humour and recognition of seeing through a child’s eyes, but because of that very innocence, the horror and darkness of deprivation, and desperation, are even more intense.
It is a fine example of ‘showing’ the reader the realities of social difficulties rather than ‘telling’ them and it is all the more powerful because of it.

Hari is disturbed by the awful murder of the local boy and sets out with Dean to find out who did it – in that innocent way that children think they can become detectives. He never really thinks what the consequences of that might be. He observes how Miquita is treated by her boyfriend and knows it isn’t as it should be, even though he doesn’t say as much, leaving the reader with a deep sense of unease. The social pressures on Miquita and Lydia to behave in certain ways are very apparent, although Lydia at least seems to manage to keep them at a greater distance. Miquita, however, seems thoroughly entrenched in the gang culture and unable to establish herself outside of it; she is trapped and replicates the bullying behaviour she experiences on Lydia when she is doing her hair.

Then there are the problems of an immigrant family split by necessity; one half of them still in Africa keeping in touch through skype; wife separated from husband, child from mother, older children from their father. When the baby gets sick they all have to put up with the distance and just pray that all will turn out well. Hari’s aunt has burnt off her fingerprints in a desperate attempt to ward off being deported and puts up with a partner who is manipulative and violent.

Hari’s mother is the "salt of the earth" type, trying to keep her children on the straight and narrow, despite the odds horribly stacked against her. She works hard and patiently puts up with the racism that some of her patients display.The family go to church and some of their beliefs and culture further separate them from that of the country they find themselves in. Hari is caught between two worlds and has no realisation of how deep-a-hole he and his great friend, Dean, are digging.
Throughout the book Hari reports on the anti-social-behaviour that besets everyone’s lives; the stone throwing, the state of the buildings and the burning of the playground to name but a few. It is a bleak vision.


The issues in the book were obviously relevant in the 2011, but unfortunately I fear they are even more relevant now; the problems for immigrants and knife crime having got even worse. Pigeon English takes those stark problems and presents them in a real and entertaining way, never preaching, until, finally, it leads us to the final body-blow, and cuts us mercilessly deep.

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Dee
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Sat Mar 21, 2020 3:12 am

I just finished it. :03:

I knew where it was going pretty much from the start, but like you said, it still punched me in the gut when it happened. To watch an 11 year old bleed out after being brutally stabbed is bad enough. To experience it through him, having been in his head for months, having grown to love his spirit, this was utterly heartbreaking.

My Moonchime, your review is incredibly well written and explains beautifully why this novel is so powerful. Showing this world through the eyes of a child, who is still relatively new to it, just describing it as it is, occasionally misjudging the borderline between prank and vandalism, and not quite seeing yet how fascination with violence can easily turn into immersing in it. This is possibly the part that is most horrifying. How you can see a slippery slide in full operation.

What will it take for a community to emerge from this swamp that relentlessly gobbles up its youth?

Why would Harri's family even want to come and live here?

I'm left with a broken heart. I see no way out.

Yes, the murder case will probably be solved now. There's the video footage. But Harri's murder was left purposefully open. Was it Killa? Was it Jordan? Who's going to solve this crime?

The whole concept of settling arguments with "chooking" is widely accepted by all. Maybe not chooke to kill, but to use a knife. Even Harri seems accepting of it. And once you have a knife, (a screwdriver) - even if you start having one on you purely for "self-defence" - anything can happen.

One of the most disturbing part is perhaps the apparent reasons for these knife crimes. It could start with nothing more than just hurt pride. And then it's covering up your first crime. And you can imagine how doing it for "justice" and avenging someone's death will follow. Meanwhile the police seems desperately ineffective and mistrusted by the community. Why is that? Chicken or egg?

Our society completely fails tackling this massive problem.

Back to the story. I loved the way it was written.
Getting to know Harri, this lovely boy with a soaring spirit, despite the dark horrors of the culture lapping at it. The use of the narrative from the Pigeon's point of view was an original touch. The parallels between his story and Harri's were gripping (the magpie incident was especially chilling). I loved how Harri loved this Pigeon.

Thank you very much for the recommendation, Mz MC. A very insightful and brilliantly written book.

I'm left with thinking, how our current situation with the corona virus will affect these communities?

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Moonchime
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Wed Apr 01, 2020 9:45 am

Dee wrote:
Sat Mar 21, 2020 3:12 am
I just finished it. :03:
Meanwhile the police seems desperately ineffective and mistrusted by the community. Why is that? Chicken or egg?


You know I just don't know why the police are so mistrusted - sometimes undoubtedly because there has been endemic racism in some areas of the force. When I lived in the East End the couple I lived with always referred to the police as "the filth" and yet they never told me of any personal reason why they called them that; it just seemed to go with their political adherence to the Socialist Worker's Party. It's so difficult to mend mistrust once it has settled in.

I'm left with thinking, how our current situation with the corona virus will affect these communities?
I must admit I've wondered that - or at least wondered about all those people for whom a lockdown means staying in a cramped flat with no garden and probably no decent green space nearby to walk in. Some places are grim.

The story is loosely based on Damilola Taylor who was killed in 2000 ten days before his eleventh birthday. I have the documentary "Damilola, our beloved boy" recorded, but I've not yet felt the strength to watch it.

I'm glad you felt the book was well - written; I thought the voice of Hari was so strong and vital; so very beautifully, awfully, wonderfully real.

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Moonchime
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Wed Apr 01, 2020 9:46 am

By the way I did read your response just after you wrote - I was so excited - it's just taken me a while to feedback.

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Dee
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Wed Apr 01, 2020 10:40 am

lol, Who am I to complain, after I took so long to read the book?

So who do you think killed Harri?

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